Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always: Movie Review

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always Movie Review: Limiting Nostalgia

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"Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always" has a very tough task being a tribute film. Do you bring one full-on nostalgia and completely isolate a lot of other viewers in the process or do you shake things up and disappoint those that are the ones that will most likely give it the most attention? The film ended up being the former meaning fans of the show will definitely fall in love with this but the heavy influence of nostalgia no doubt limited what could have been and should have been a better tribute to a show that defined global culture three decades ago. 


Decades after they defeated Rita Repulsa (Barbara Goodson), the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers find themselves facing their old archnemesis again. And now, she's better than ever and ready to conquer Earth once and for all. As they find themselves outmatched and a part of their team captured, Blue Ranger (David Yost) and Black Ranger (Walter Emmanuel Jones) find an unlikely and young new recruit.


Sticking to its "old" formula, "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always" felt more like an extended new episode rather than a film. But the 55-minute running time was complete, fun, and even dramatic. Basically, this was designed for the show's fans and not much else. So if you're the target audience for this, you'll find yourself going back to the Nineties and back to your childhood. Unfortunately, not changing its look and feel meant that this also contained a lot of issues that, from a young one's viewpoint wouldn't be noticeable, but now as an adult would stand out like a sore thumb. From its corny humor and script to actors over-acting in their scenes, this felt a bit too amateurish and definitely falls short for a 30th anniversary celebration if we're being honest with ourselves. Oddly enough, the film was able to integrate Thuy Trang's real-life death well (being the crux of the film's plot) but wasn't able to take into account Jason David Frank's recent demise late last year. Another quirk was the subpar effects especially when it came to the Megazord. The visual effects and CGI really disappointed us as this truly felt like a creation we've last seen in the early 2000s. As you can see, "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always" have major faults and we only recommend this to fans of the show and no one else. It's a creation designed for and designed to please a certain audience and in that bubble, this tribute film rules.
  

Rating: 3 reels

 
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